Ngorongoro National Park Tanzania

The Ngorongoro Crater is a protected area and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979 as part of the larger Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which includes two other craters and located 180 km (110 mi) west of Arusha in the Crater Highlands area of Tanzania. The area is named after Ngorongoro Crater, a large volcanic caldera within the area. The conservation area is managed by the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority, an arm of the Tanzanian government, and its boundaries trail the boundary of the Ngorongoro Division of the Arusha Region.

Overview of Ngorongoro National Park

The area is part of the Serengeti ecosystem and, to the northwest, adjoins the SNP and is connecting with the southern Serengeti plains. These plains also extend to the north into the unprotected Loliondo division and are kept open to wildlife through transhumance pastoralism practiced by the Maasai. The south and west of the area are volcanic highlands, including the famous Ngorongoro Crater and the lesser known Empakaa Crateri. The southern and eastern boundaries are approximately defined by the rim of the East African Rift wall, which also prevents animal migration in these directions. Ngorongoro crater is the largest unbroken caldera in the world. The crater, together with the Olmoti and Empakaai craters are part of the eastern Rift Valley, whose volcanism dates back to the late Mesozoic / early Tertiary periods and is famous for its geology. The crater also includes Laetoli and Olduvai Gorge, which contain an important paleontological record related to human evolution. Ngorongoro Conservation Area is home to a population of some 25,000 large animals, mostly ungulates, alongside the highest density of mammalian predators in Africa including the densest known population of lion (estimated 68 in 1987). The conservation area harbours a range of endangered species, such as the Black Rhino, Wild hunting dog and Golden Cat and 500 species of birds. It also supports one of the largest animal migrations on earth, including over 1 million wildebeest, 72,000 zebras and 350,000 Thompson and Grant gazelles. The stunning landscape of Ngorongoro Crater combined with its spectacular concentration of wildlife is one of the greatest natural wonders of the planet. Spectacular wildebeest numbers (well over 1 million animals) pass through the area as part of the annual migration of wildebeest across the Serengeti ecosystem and calve in the short grass plains which straddle the Ngorongoro Conservation Area/Serengeti National Park boundary. This constitutes a truly outstanding natural phenomenon. The variations in climate, landforms and altitude have resulted in several overlapping ecosystems and distinct habitats, with short grass plains, highland catchment forests, savanna woodlands, montane long grass plains and high open moorlands. The area is part of the Serengeti ecosystem, one of the last complete ecosystems in the world which harbours large and spectacular animal migrations. The main feature of the Ngorongoro Conservation Authority is the Ngorongoro Crater, the world’s largest inactive, intact and unfilled volcanic caldera. The crater, which formed when a large volcano exploded and collapsed on itself two to three million years ago, is 610 metres (2,000 feet) deep and its floor covers 260 square kilometres (100 square miles). Estimates of the height of the original volcano range from 4,500 to 5,800 metres (14,800 to 19,000 feet) high. The elevation of the crater floor is 1,800 metres (5,900 feet) above sea level. The Crater was voted by Seven Natural Wonders as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa in Arusha, Tanzania in February 2013.The Ngorongoro Conservation Area (809,440 ha) spans vast expanses of highland plains, savanna, savanna woodlands and forests, from the plains of the Serengeti National Park in the north-west, to the eastern arm of the Great Rift Valley. The area was established in 1959 as a numerous land use area, with wildlife coexisting with semi-nomadic Maasai pastoralists practicing traditional livestock grazing. It includes the spectacular Ngorongoro Crater, the world’s largest caldera, and Olduvai Gorge, a 14km long deep ravine. The area has universal importance for biodiversity conservation in view of the presence of globally threatened species such as the black Rhino, the density of wildlife inhabiting the Ngorongoro Crater and surrounding areas throughout the year, and the annual migration of wildebeest, zebra, Thompsons and Grants gazelles and other ungulates into the northern plains. The Ngorongoro Crater is a huge volcanic caldera, covering 100 sq. mi (260 sq. km) in Northern Tanzania. Formed approximately 2.5 million years ago when a giant volcano exploded and collapsed in on itself, the Ngorongoro Crater is 2000ft (610m) deep. Endowed with an abundance of wildlife, the crater features almost every animal species present in East Africa. Around 2.5 million years ago, the Ngorongoro crater was a huge volcanic mountain, rivalling Kilimanjaro in size. This changed when the top of the mountain collapsed in on itself, creating the biggest volcanic caldera in the world. The volcanic eruptions like that of Ngorongoro, which resulted in the formation of Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, were very common. Similar collapses occurred in the case of Olmoti and Empakaai, but they were much smaller in magnitude and impact. Out of the two recent volcanoes lying to the northeast of the Empakaai caldera, Kerimasi and Ol Doinyo Lengai, the Doinyo Lengai is still active, and the last erupted major eruptions were in 2007 and 2008. Smaller ash eruptions and lava flows continue to slowly fill the current crater. This volcano is also known as the Maasai’s ‘Mountain of God’. The crater highlands on the side facing the easterly trade winds receives 800 to 1,200 millimetres (31 to 47 inches) of rain a year and are covered largely in montane forest.  The less-steep west wall receives only 400 to 600 millimetres (16 to 24 inches) and is grassland and bushland dotted with Euphorbia bussei (es) trees. The crater floor is mostly open grassland with two small wooded areas dominated by fever tree.

How to get to Ngorongoro Park

How to Get Ngorongoro crater

One needs to fly to Kilimanjaro International Airport at Moshi, situated at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro. From there one can get a charter flight, take a taxi or make use of the free shuttle service. The distance from Moshi to Arusha is about 55km.

The road from Arusha to Lodoare Entrance Gate is 160km long. As of recently, the entire journey is on tarmac and it takes about two hours. Unless you stay on the main roads, which are graveled, a 4×4 vehicle is essential when entering the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the Serengeti National Park.

Best Season to Visit

The short rains are from November to December and the long rains from February to April, the latter generally being considered the off season. However, the rainy season is a very exciting time of year as this is when animals congregate on the Short Grass Plains to have their young. Late February, early March is usually a good time to see the migration on the plains. In turn, this attracts large number of predators and results in spectacular interactions between predators and prey. Keep in mind that part of the Serengeti Plain falls within the NCA.

The dry season holds its own beauty. In Africa the dry season is the best time for game viewing because the animals are concentrated along permanent water sources. Within the Crater game viewing is excellent during this time. However, keep in mind that the Short Grass Plains become completely devoid of game during this season. This is the best time of the year to visit Empakaai and Ndutu, which has resident game that remains around the lake all year round.

What to See in NgorongoroPark

What to see in Ngorongoro crater?

 People and Culture (Maasai)

There are approximately 42,000 Masai tribe members living within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. They live off the land, and move in accordance with the needs of their animals (cattle, goats, sheep, donkeys). For thousands of years a succession of cattle herding people moved into the Area, lived here for time, and then moved on, sometimes forced out by other tribes.

Visitors are welcomed at two designated Maasai cultural bomas one on the road to Serengeti and another close to Sopa Lodge at Irkeepusi village. The Datoga, Nilo-Hamitic-speaking pastoralists, who arrived more than 300 years ago and were subsequently forced out of the Serengeti-Ngorongoro area by the Maasai, today they live just outside the NCA, in the Lake Eyasi basin and beyond.

One can visit the Maasai Cultural bomas in the NCA to learn more about their unique culture, to take photographs, and to buy souvenirs. There is an entrance fee to be paid but it is well worth it. Please be sensitive to the fact that it is considered bad manners to take photographs of people along the roadside without consent. A visit to one of the following is highly recommended that is, Kiloki senyati cultural boma is located on the main road to Serengeti, 7 km south-west of the Olduvai Gorge Information Center, Loonguku cultural boma, located on the main road to Serengeti, 10km before the turn-off to Olduvai Gorge Irkeepusi cultural boma Situated 2km north-east of Lemala mini gate, on the main road to Empakaai and Seneto cultural boma Situated just west of the Seneto Gate, within the Malanja Depression.

Olduvai Gorge

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area also protects Olduvai Gorge, situated in the plains area. It is considered to be the seat of humanity after the discovery of the earliest known specimens of the human genus, Homo habilis as well as early hominidae, such as Paranthropus boisei.

The Olduvai Gorge is a steep-sided ravine in the Great Rift Valley, which stretches along eastern Africa. Oldupai is in the eastern Serengeti Plains in northern Tanzania and is about 50 kilometres (31 mi) long. It lies in the rain shadow of the Ngorongoro highlands and is the driest part of the region. The gorge is named after ‘Oldupaai’, the Maasai word for the wild sisal plant, Sansevieria ehrenbergii.

It is one of the most important primitive sites in the world and research there has been instrumental in furthering understanding of early human evolution. Excavation work there was pioneered by Mary and Louis Leakey in the 1950s and is continued today by their family. Some believe that millions of years ago, the site was that of a large lake, the shores of which were covered with successive deposits of volcanic ash. Around 500,000 years ago seismic activity diverted a nearby stream which began to cut down into the sediments, revealing seven main layers in the walls of the gorge.

The Ngorongoro Crater

Encompassing three spectacular volcanic craters, the Olduvai Gorge, huge expanses of savannah, forest and bush land, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area is the top of Tanzania’s tourism industry. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), measuring 8,300 square kilometres, is also the only place on earth where mankind and wild animals co-exist in harmony. The NCA became a Man and Biosphere Reserve in 1971 and was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979.

Animals at the Ngorongoro Crater

Approximately 25,000 large animals, mostly ungulates, live in the crater. Large animals in the crater include the black rhinoceros, the local population of which declined from about 108 in 1964-66 to between 11-14 in 1995, the African buffalo or Cape buffalo, and the hippopotamus. There are also many other ungulates such as the blue wildebeests (7,000 estimated in 1994), Grant’s zebra, the common eland, and Grant’s and Thomson’s gazelles (3,000). Waterbucks occur mainly near Lerai Forest. There are no topis, oribis, or crocodiles. Impala are absent because the open woodland they prefer does not exist. Giraffe also are absent, possibly because of a lack of browse species. Tanzanian cheetah, East African wild dog, and African leopard are rarely seen.

The area contains over 25,000 large animals including 26 black rhinoceros. There are 7,000 wildebeests, 4,000 zebras, 3,000 elands and 3,000 Grant’s and Thomson’s gazelles. The crater also has the deepest known population of lions, numbering 62. Higher up, in the rainforests of the crater rim, are leopards, about 30 large elephants, mountain reedbuck and more than 4,000 buffalos, spotted hyenas, jackals, rare wild dogs, cheetahs, and other felines.

The legendary annual wildebeest and zebra migration also passes through Ngorongoro, when the 1.7 million ungulates move south into the area in December then move out heading north in June. The migrants passing through the plains of the reserve include 1.7 million wildebeest, 260,000 zebras, and 470,000 gazelles. The Lake Ndutu area to the west has significant cheetah and lion populations. Over 500 species of bird have been recorded within the NCA. These include ostrich, white pelican, and greater and lesser flamingo on Lake Magadi within the crater, Lake Ndutu, and in the Empakaai Crater Lake, where a vast bird population can be observed. Ngorongoro also has two other volcanic craters that is Olmoti and Empakai, the former famous for its stunning waterfalls, and the latter holding a deep lake and lush, green walls.

Ngorongoro Crater is a can’t-miss destination in Tanzania which offers a classic Big 5 safari experience in the unique setting of an ancient volcanic caldera. The African black rhino, largest tusker elephants, Ngorongoro Crater Lions, leopards and buffalos are healthy available in the Ngorongoro Crater. Ngorongoro Crater scenery is spectacular, predators are abundant and it’s not unusual to see the Big 5 in a single day. The Ngorongoro Crater is the obvious choice and the best place in Tanzania to see the Big Five. Ngorongoro Crater is one of the most beautiful natural wildlife safari sites in the world and an exceptional place to interact with people from the Maasai tribe. Because of the variety of animals present, the Ngorongoro Crater is a well-known tourist attraction.

Ngorongoro Crater Lions

The Crater’s lions of Ngorongoro population varies significantly over time, the one constant being their complete disregard of vehicles, they will hunt within yards of a vehicle, and when exhausted even seek shade beside them. Ngorongoro Crater lions are known with its habit of climbing trees.

Spotted hyenas are even more common here, often competing with the lion, and there’s are a small but growing number of cheetah. Leopards are around, especially in the vicinity of the Lerai Forest. Side-striped and the lovely golden jackal are often seen skulking around, whilst bat-eared foxes are a rarer sight.

The crater has one of the heaviest known population of Masai lions, numbering 62 in 2001.A side effect of the crater being a natural enclosure is that the lion population is significantly inborn. This is due to the very small amount of new descents that enter the local gene pool, as very few migrating male lions enter the crater from the outside. Those who do enter the crater are often prevented from contributing to the gene pool by the crater’s male lions, who expel any outside competitors.

The park is teeming with wildlife, with animals such as zebra, buffalo, hyenas, wildebeests and lions thriving in the area. There are approximately 30,000 animals, though certain animals (e.g. giraffe and impala) are not present due to difficulties negotiating the crater rim cliffs and insufficient grazing opportunities.

Vegetation cover

Ngorongoro is home to lush green, rain-watered vegetation, as well as desert plants. The area has uncultivated lowland vegetation, arid and semi-arid plant communities, abundant short grass used for grazing, and highland forests. Scrub heath, grasslands, high open moorland, and the remains of dense evergreen forests cover the steep slopes of the crater, while highland trees including Peacock Flower, Yellow-Wood, Kousso (Hagenia abyssinica), and Sweet Olive can also be found. There are also extensive stretches of pure bamboo on Oldeani Mountain, and Pencil Cedar on Makarut Mountain to the west. Dove- weeds dominate the lower slopes, while the upland woodlands contain Red Thorn Acacia and Gum Acacia that are critical for protecting the watershed.

The crater basin is covered by open short grass plains with fresh and brackish water lakes, marshes, swamps, and two patches of Acacia woodland. The Lerai Forest is home to the Yellow Fever tree and Acacia, while Laiyanai Forest has Pillar Wood and Acacia Lahai. The undulating plains to the west are grass-covered with occasional Umbrella Acacia and Commiphora Africana trees. Blackthorn Acacia and Zebrawood dominate in the drier conditions beside Lake Eyasi. These extensive grasslands and bush are rich, relatively untouched by cultivation, and support very large animal populations.

Flamingos are very common at lakes in the NCA, all of which are saline. Flamingos are filter feeders and feed on plankton. Plankton is a collective name for microscopic plants and animals that occur in the mud and on the surface of shallow, saline lakes.

Information Center

An information center for the northern circuit is located along Boma Road in downtown Arusha. The Center provides detailed information on tourist attractions, facilities and activities available in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Most safaris depart from Arusha town and the information center is a must for visitors. Internet facilities are available. Promotional publications, wildlife books, cards, audio cassettes and CD-ROMs are also available.

Lake Magadi

The Munge Stream drains Olmoti Crater to the north, and is the main water source draining into the seasonal Salt Lake in the center of the crater. This lake is known by two names, Makat as the Maasai called it, meaning salt and Magadi. The Lerai Stream drains the humid forests to the south of the Crater, and it feeds the Lerai Forest on the crater floor – when there is enough rain, the Lerai drains into Lake Magadi as well. Extraction of water by lodges and NCA headquarters reduces the amount of water entering Lerai by around 25 percent.

The other major water source in the crater is the Ngoitokitok Spring, near the eastern crater wall. There is a picnic site here open to tourists and a huge swamp fed by the spring, and the area is occupied by hippopotamus, elephants, lions and many others. Many other small springs can be found around the crater’s floor, and these are important water supplies for the animals and local Maasai, especially during times of drought.

Following the recommendations of the ad hoc committee of scientists convened after the year 2000 drought, an ecological burning program was implemented in the crater, which entails annual or biannual controlled burns of up to 20 percent of the grasslands. Maasai are now permitted to graze their cattle within the crater, but must enter and exit daily.

Empakaai Crater is a deep soda lake that shelters about half of the 6km wide. This caldera is much smaller, yet charming in its own way. You’ll often find thousands of flamingos in the shallows of the emerald lake giving it an outstanding pink color. The views from the rim over the Ngorongoro Crater to Ol Doinyo Lengai are thought to be some of the most remarkable in Africa on very clear days you can even see Mount Kilimanjaro and Lake Natron.

Lake Magadi

The Olmoti Crater

This is the second crater which has a shallow base covered in grass. Here you should be able to see some of the Maasai tribe with their livestock as well as wild buffalos, reedbuck and eland. Crossing the crater is The Munge River which leads into a mesmerising waterfall which falls hundreds of metres.

What to Do in NgorongoroPark

Things to do in Ngorongoro crater

Activities inside the Ngorongoro Crater itself are limited to game driving; there are a couple of picnic spots in the park, but getting out of the vehicle is strictly limited to these areas. However, a full range of activities is on offer in the wider Ngorongoro Conservation Area, including walking, trekking, excursions to Olduvai Gorge and visiting the Masai and other tribes.

Visit the Olduvai Gorge

Olduvai Gorge, is located in the heart of the Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Crater. This 300-mile long gorge is famous for being the site where 2-million-year old human fossils were found. Step back in time, and walk the same paths that our ancient ancestors walked. And while you’re here, don’t forget to visit the small but charming Oldupai Museum that was founded by Mary Leakey, the woman responsible for finding the fossils! This will be a great opportunity for those traveling to Ngorongoro from Serengeti, and will absolutely give you a great understanding about our descendants and how they lived!

Bird Watching

The mixture of forest, canyons, grassland plains, Lakes and marshes provide habitats for a wide range of bird life. The wet months see the arrival of the Eurasian migrants at the pools. White storks, yellow wagtails and swallows mingle with the local inhabitants: stilts, saddle-bill storks, ibis, ruff and various species of duck. Lesser flamingos fly in to feed from their breeding grounds at Lake Natron. Distinctive grassland birds – ostrich, kori bustards and crowned cranes-abound. The rest of the NCA also has areas which will reward the keen birdwatcher.

Experience the “Masai Way of Life”

Travelling to Ngorongoro crater without visiting a Maasai village is really an incomplete destination. The Maasai are semi-nomadic people who have lived in Kenya and Tanzania for a very long time. You can experience the Maasai way of life in their bomas (village-like communities). The Maasai are very welcoming, and are eager to share information about their customs, lifestyle, and traditions. There are a variety of circuits that offer visits into these Maasai villages. If you want to observe their lifestyle in greater depth, you can get in touch with a local NGO or your travel agent to schedule a private village trip- this would be way less touristy, and will give you an insider view of the villages as well.

Visiting The Ngorongoro Crater

The crater is a stunning natural wonder of the world and sits right in the middle of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The bottom of the crater is popular for incredible opportunities to see game; you could view some exceedingly rare animals (e.g. black rhino) as well as many different herds of animals.

Originally, The Ngorongoro Crater was volcanic and was formed approximately 20 million years ago as part of the Rift Valley. The rim of the crater is high, standing at 2220 m (1.4 miles) so take a jacket or sweater as it can get chilly! The steep walls at the side of the crater rise over 600 m from the floor and it is the most magical area in the conservation area certain to enthral every person who visits.

Accommodation in NgorongoroPark

Accommodation while at Ngorongoro crater

Ngorongoro Wildlife lodge

Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge


Bisley Oxford Blue 2 3 Drawer Locking Filing Cabinets

Bisley Oxford Blue 2   3 Drawer Locking Filing Cabinets undercounter locking drawer

Bisley Oxford Blue 2 3 Drawer Locking Filing Cabinets undercounter locking drawer

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Culture & Media

Purun Media Co., Ltd. was established in May 2018 with a registered capital of 50 million yuan. As a media company engaged in investment of film and television production, production and distribution, performance brokerage, advertising, cultural training, large-scale event planning, literary and artistic creation, venture capital investment and industry park incubation, it actively explores new ways for integrative development of multiple industrial resources and advocates cultural exchanges and cultural and economic development at home and abroad with new thinking and models under the support of first-class cultural consultants and expert team. It enjoys a good reputation in the industry.

In 2018, Purun Media undertook the Opening Ceremony of 2018 China Chongqing Diaoyu Fortress Tourism Leisure Cultural Festival and the Glorious Year of Diaoyu Fortress to Apply for World Heritage Classic Party and held the launching ceremony for costume drama series Diaoyu Fortress, aiming to carry forward Chinese history and the national spirit, promote the internationalization of the Diaoyu Fortress relics study and facilitate its application for world heritage and cultural exchanges.

In the future, Purun Media will create a card of Chongqing culture and promote cultural exchanges between China and the foreign countries with the aim of cultural communication; make active efforts for integration of cultural resources and tourism resources and strive to build a new healthy and livable destination for culture featured by green ecology and industry-city integration by the mode of “take culture as the core, technology as the backbone and tourism as the carrier”.

    Zip Code：401121 Tel：023-63063353
    Add: B1-17&18,No.92 Xingguang Avenue,Yubei District,Chongqing.
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Definitions for "Upstream"
A kind of transmission in which information or data is fed from an end user to a server. See â€œdownstreamâ€.
Refers typically to the transmission speed from the user to the data network.
If the process by which something is accomplished or produced is thought of as a "flow" from one stage of the process to another, then "upstream" refers to the stages of the process that come before the stage that serves as the reference point. Improvements or innovations made upstream in a process (e.g., Design of product or process) often can have high-leverage impact on results downstream.
Toward the higher part of a stream; against the current.
The section of river that is between you and the start of the river. The side of the boat facing the oncoming current.
In the direction opposite to the movement of traffic.
Keywords:  uptime
Towards the Internet away from the school. For example (relative to your school), the BrightSparks network is upstream of VicOne, which in turn is upstream of your school network.
in Internet access, is traffic originating at the customer end and travelling toward the service provider, possibly for transit to other points on the Internet.
Upstream refers to a relative position in DNA or RNA. Each strand of DNA or RNA has a 5' end and a 3' end, so named for the carbons on the deoxyribose ring. Relative to the position on the strand, upstream is the region towards the 5' end of the strand.
Keywords:  ping, sync, credentials, explicit, blog
an explicit destination that the blog account user configures with credentials, but many blog engines automatically ping popular aggregation sites
Identifies DSL sync rate from the end user premises to the DSL equipment.
In xDSL, the communications from the customer site up into the telecommunications network.
Keywords:  filtered, blows, air, side
The side of the filter that the air blows into, before being filtered.
A reference used to describe equipment/vessels located in the production process in advance to an identified location/vessel
Keywords:  cable, move, signals, network, company
Signals in a cable network that move from the home to the cable company.


Strona główna Popularne Muzyka Rozrywka Sport Śmieszne

The truth about the ancient Egyptian pyramids

2015-07-09 41 Dailymotion

The last remaining of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, the great pyramids of Giza are perhaps the most famous and discussed structures in history. These massive monuments were unsurpassed in height for thousands of years after their construction and continue to amaze and enthrall us with their overwhelming mass and seemingly impossible perfection. Their exacting orientation and mind-blowing construction has elicited many theories about their origins, including unsupported suggestions that they had extra-terrestrial impetus. However, by examining the several hundred years prior to their emergence on the Giza plateau, it becomes clear that these incredible structures were the result of many experiments, some more successful than others, and represent an apogee in the development of the royal mortuary complex.

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TRACE 2019 video abstracts

Sorted by date of submission. Click on link to access the videos.

1. Mauro Bernabei et al.: The Rigopiano tragedy: dendrochronological analyses of the trees along the avalanche track.

2. Francesco Niccoli et al: The influence of mixed tree plantation on soil fertility and plant productivity: a combined approach.

3. Michal Rybníček et al.: The oldest dendrochronologically dated wooden construction in Europe.

4. Jörg Niederberger et al.: Immobilization of P into wood and bark following fertilization.

5. Juliane Stolz et al.: From wet to dry: Studying the climate sensitivity and resilience of pine and beech growth over a precipitation gradient in northeastern Germany.

6. Anastasiia Lahoiko et al.: Wood formation in two Quercus roburphenological forms in Kyiv, Ukraine.

7. Marek Ježík et al.: Intra-seasonal beech chronologies response to weather variability during twelve consecutive seasons at high altitude in Poľana Mts., Western Carpathians, based on proxies extracted from dendrometers.

8. Serena Antonucci et al.: Influence of climatic factors on silver fir xylogenesis along the Italian Peninsula.

9. Enrico Tonelli et al.: Are short tree-ring series suitable for detection of climate-growth relationships? A trial with young black pines encroaching the central Apennines treelines.

10. Elisabeth Robert et al.: Remarkable absence of within-species adjustments in conductive xylem, phloem and xylem parenchyma structural traits along a water availability gradient.

11. Alba Anadon-Rosell et al.: Assessment of the rewetting effects of a swamp through the quantitative wood anatomical analysis of Alnus glutinosa.

12. Cesar Alvites et al.: Dendrochronology of Polylepisin the AndesDendrochronological analysis and growth patterns of Polylepis reticulata(Rosaceae) in the Ecuadorian Andes.

13. Peili Fu et al.: Seasonal radial growth of Toona cililata from tropical forests with contrasting soil water status in Xishuangbanna, SW China.

14. Tzu-Tung Sassa Chen and Hans Linderholm: Can climate change trigger resurgence of infectious diseases? A malaria case study in Sweden.

15. Allan Buras et al.: Willow dwarf-shrubs in a changing Arctic: insights from a natural long-term warming experiment.

16. Allan Buras et al.: Provenance selection and site conditions determine growth performance of Quercus robur.

17. Kristof Haneca et al.: WOODAN: towards a European database of wooden archaeological artifacts.

18. D. Tishin et al.: Xylogenesis of Scots Pine growing in stress conditions of the Middle Volga Region, Tartastan, Russia.


Sunglint on Turkmenbashi Gulf

Sunglint on Turkmenbashi Gulf

An astronaut onboard the International Space Station took this photo of sunglint reflecting off Turkmenbashi Gulf, an inlet on the southeastern edge of the Caspian Sea. The complex glint patterns are due to waves, winds, the presence of oils or surfactants, and the presence of boats and drilling platforms—all of which alter the roughness of the water surface.

Just beyond the narrow passage into Turkmenbashi Gulf, dozens of offshore drilling operations dot the sea surface. The Caspian Sea is a large oil-producing region, and these drilling platforms are located over a natural gas field. Though these platforms are barely visible from space, the passing waves and sunglint create a traceable line, making the structures easier to locate from above. Wakes from boats also create linear streaks as they head to and from towns and petroleum storage.

A bright, hook-shaped streak appears in the sunglint near the drilling platforms. This could possibly be an oil slick or bilge water discharge from a ship. The streak has been reworked by waves, so the source cannot be determined from this photo.


du·al·i·ty : the quality or state of having two parts

noun \dü-ˈa-ləә-tē also dyü-\ : the quality or state of having two parts

Duality is my long term, photography project falling under the fine art genre. The intent is to create a series of self portraits, that speak to the viewer both visually and mentally. I intend the images to be reflective and reveal meaning behind the evolution of the “Self”.

I hope you enjoy my images as much as I enjoyed the journey that brought them to life.


I believe in moons

“Martian moons are Phobos and Deimos,
the latter translated as Panic,” I told you then.
I would leave you that very next week for California.
The last time we drove around the lake in your jeep,
open air, breeze whipping the hair against our ears, you
I still don’t know what you mean.

Stillness and Presence

T.S. Eliot, “Four Quartets”

The dance is ongoing. It is presence. It never was nor will be but at the still point of our ever turning, evolving world–that is us. And the dance is lovely and freeing if you stay there.

Dark Matter, Does it?

“If the multiverse idea is correct, then the historic mission of physics to explain all the properties of our universe in terms of fundamental principles–to explain why the properties of our universe must necessarily be what they are–is futile, a beautiful philosophical dream that simply isn’t true. Our universe is what it is because we are here. ”
Alan Lightman, “The Accidental Universe”

Astronomy week, when the class and I read two essays, one about the relationships of the sun, moon and Earth–and one human to another, and one about the aim of science to figure out who we are, why we came to be, is an exciting week for me.

I wax on about the mysteries of the universe, the idea of the multiverse, Big Bang, Intelligent Design, Newton and the Theory of Gravity, Darwin and the Theory of Evolution, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, ten or more dimensions of space, quantum theory, quarks, string theory, Inflation theory, dark energy and matter, the complete absence of a theory on how the human brain creates consciousness, and the overall pursuit of a fully coherent cosmos that adds up to us–what scientists had hoped to achieve through speculation, calculation and logic, beginning with observing natural laws, up til recent history when the Hubble deep field experiment revealed the probability of a multiverse.

The project to discover the cause and effect chain to everything had to be abandoned with thrown up arms, seemingly also abandoning the aims of the preceding thousands of years’ work. Alan Lightman writes about this interrupter known as the multiverse in “The Accidental Universe.” And when I ask students, who look at me as if I am on a 70’s psychedelic trip, what this all has to do with them, their reality right now, no one can answer–not even the ones who desperately want to answer something, anything.

Like history, the cosmos is just too far away. They cannot feel it, not even as a dream they may have had and can recall in that hazy sense of remembering a distorted reality deeply imprinted in another realm of consciousness.

And so students interpret that faith in the unknown not as the spurs to discover what is out there but as the sigh of futility. It has so little to do with their immediate aims–surviving school, work and social media.

But it is human arrogance to require relevance to the human condition. Or that the multiverse is created in our own image, running round ourselves like the orbiting moon to Earth, Earth to the sun.

“The disposition of the universe–that crazy wheelwright–designates that we live on a wheel, with wheels for associates and wheels for luminaries, with days like wheels and years like wheels and shadows that wheel around us night and day; as if by turning and turning, things could come round right.” Amy Leach, “You Be the Moon”

I miss the eloquence, enthusiasm, sincerity and passion of this scientist to make the real imaginable and the imaginable real:

A Little Perspective

Teaching Amy Leach’s You Be the Moon (Sail on my little Honey Bee) today in class, I cannot help but think of David Eagleman and his brilliant TEDtalk on posibilianism. Though the made up term is interesting enough, I am completely enrapt with this twenty-three minute talk for its first three minutes when he reveals what the deep field Hubble experiment yielded several years ago. My jaw no longer drops because I have shared this talk with my classes semester in and semester out for the last few years but my mind’s jaw still does.

Posibilianism is also a fun kind of idea too.  Enjoy.


Tribal structures in Kandahar Province

Tribal structures in Kandahar Province:
Pashtuns comprise the major ethnic group in Kandahar and Pashto is spoken by about 98% of its population. Dari and Balochi are also commonly spoken in the province. Kandahar’s major tribes are the Popalzai (of which President Karzai and his family are members), the Barakzai, the Alkozai, the Noorzai and the Alezai. The tribal structure is complex and deeply rooted – such allegiances are often important considerations when political appointments are made.

The tribe is an underlying social factor in Kandahar, but its importance for Kandahar’s politics and security can be overestimated. Kandahar’s tribes are not unified political entities. Almost all political leaders in Kandahar claim to be tribal elders. Control over guns, money, and connections to the state have become far more important. if the tribe is not the central driver of politics in Kandahar, however, it is the terrain on which Kandahar’s political battles are fought.

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Therefore, understanding tribal and ethnic structures is an important aspect for the project staff, where keeping balance among the tribal representation is key to the success of a project and program.

Politics and Power Dynamics:
While most actors in Kandahar call themselves tribal leaders, few influential actors in Kandahar derive their influence from their positions. control over guns, money, and foreign support have become more important as sources of power. Influential actors in Kandahar nevertheless attempt to maintain influence over the tribal system and often organize their networks, militias, and cartels along tribal lines.

The power structure in Kandahar province is divided among various entities and tribes, which need a comprehensive power analysis to be done. There is a feeling among residents of Arghandab district that, despite their close proximity to the provincial capital, they are largely neglected by the central government. Given their relative population and the historical prominence of the tribe, they have a reasonable expectation of playing a larger role. Yet the Alokozai have weak links to Kabul and, despite the influence of the late Mullah Naqib, they have largely been excluded from the provincial government. The last influential Alokozai in the provincial government was Khan Mohammad, who served as police chief for the province from 2009 until his assassination in 2011.

The Karzai and Sherzai’s families and the police commander of Kandahar province (Abdul Razaq) are among the people that can positively or negatively influence the project depend on the project how they can handle it. The existence of various patronage networks on ethnic lines may be an issue of concern for the project. The existence of various power holders and their competition for the resources and power can put severe impacts over the projects. These power holders can impose severe pressure to involve them or their groups under the project or searching their interest and or involving them in the project related procurement or hiring their companies and firms to provide services under the project.

IDPs and Refugees in Kandahar Province:
Overall, Kandahar province hosts a total inflow of 257,899 returnees and IDPs, of which 70% are IDPs and 30% are returnees. Although Kandahar district hosts the most displaced persons (94,631), the most affected settlement is Marofian Kalay in Spinboldak, which hosts 22,395 IDPs and returnees.

Kandahar city has become a haven not only for rural Kandaharis, but also for tens of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Uruzgan and Helmand provinces. The most credible estimates suggest the city’s population has more than doubled in the last five years to around 800,000, though some estimates suggest the city’s population is as high as two million.

The involvement of IDPs and refugees and other disadvantaged groups such as ethnic and tribal minorities and women groups might be the potential areas which need to be assessed during the FCAS Assessment for the MFF and especially for tranche first.

Water scarcity:
Farmers and gardeners from several districts of southern Kandahar province are worried water shortages ile some of the towns are going without water, others are faced with an acute scarcity of the resource. The water level of Dalah dam, which irrigates most of farmlands in Arghandab, Shah Walikot, Zherai, Panjwai, Maiwand, Dand and Daman districts, has considerably fallen due to which farmers in the above mentioned districts are receiving very little or no water at all. This shortage of water is taking a heavy toll on their crops, and orchards, causing them severe economic losses.

Shortage of water in the above mentioned districts further intensify the water management related disputes especially between up and downstream communities. In order to reduce chance for such conflicts over the water management issues, a proper FCAS assessment need to be conducted during the processing stage of the first tranche of the MFF and identify how the existing water management capacities could be promoted and what strategies are need to be adopted to empower local capacities to manage water related conflicts.

As the first tranche of the MFF would mainly effect the upstream and downstream communities in term of replacement and resettlement and increase in water amount for irrigation, therefore the project would need to conduct an FCAS assessment especially focusing the resettlement process. The project need to assess options of where these replace communities would be settled. As there are possibilities to resettle the replace communities in the downstream areas, and if yes, what would be possible FCAS impacts of resettling them in the downstream areas. i.e. overburdening of the resources in the downstream communities, the interaction of different ethnic and tribal groups and internal conflicts issue and etc.


Dominican amber: jewelry and award-winning amber from the Dominican Republic

Do you remember the movie Jurassic Park? They created dinosaurs by extracting dinosaur DNA from blood sucked by an insect trapped in amber. These are quite sensational things!

Although, of course, all science fiction has enough science behind it to make it a pretty intriguing scenario for reflection. I remember shopping at a nature store when this movie first came out and they noticed the renewed excitement people were showing over amber jewelry containing insects.

Fossils of all kinds are fascinating, of course, but the fossils contained in the amber have a special intrigue because they are often preserved in such a sophisticated three-dimensional detail. This also includes the soft parts and details to the cell structure. These amber fossils are a window into the past that we just don't get from other fossils, as an impression of rock!

In fact, amber is itself a fossil, not just insects and other once-living creatures stored in it. Amber is a fossilized woody sap, also called resin. The exact process by which wood juice hardens into a fossil is still a mystery and therefore cannot be repeated in a laboratory. This makes the amber very special and very sought after.

Amber is found all over the world, but the two areas with the highest concentrations so far are the Baltic region of Eastern Europe and the Dominican Republic. The Baltic amber is commercially available on a much larger scale and for a much longer time than the Dominican amber. In fact, it was not until 1960 that the world began to pay serious attention to Dominican amber. However, he was definitely known to the indigenous Taino as early as 400 AD. They used it as an ornament and it was found associated with their graves. Amber deposits in the Dominican Republic have also been known to Christopher Columbus and the Spanish colonialists since the end of 1490, since the people of Taino presented them with amber necklaces on their first arrival. However, the Spaniards have such a clear focus on gold, they have largely forgotten about amber.

In 1960, Germans began to extract amber in the Dominican Republic and export rough amber products from the Dominican Republic for processing. In the late 1970s, the Dominican government began to consider the value of amber as a national natural resource and passed a law that would not allow the export of that resource unless it was worked by local Dominican craftsmen. This has kept some of the revenue generated from this natural resource in the country.

Today, tourists visiting each region of the Dominican Republic can find jewelry from Dominican amber and other fine amber items for sale in outdoor markets, beach stands, traditional shops and museums. In fact, this is one of the hottest items sold in the Dominican market, which makes people often forget how hard it is to actually get there.

Most of the best Dominican amber, the hardest and oldest and most inclusive, is located in the La Cumbre mountain area north of Santiago and south of Puerto Plata. It is found high in the mountains and is accessible only by foot or donkey. In addition, it is tightly embedded in lignite sandstone layers and must be extracted from the rock in a piece and by hand. Therefore, it is quite difficult to pass and this requires special skill and hard physical labor. So when shopping for Dominican amber jewelry, keep in mind how difficult it is to get this beautiful gem and you will understand why it can and should command a higher price than other jewelry.

Dominican amber is considered to be of higher quality than Baltic amber for two main reasons. First, Dominican amber is more translucent than Baltic amber, so you can see more clearly what is built into it. In fact, Baltic amber is usually quite dark by comparison and full of artifacts that make it difficult to see. Second, Dominican amber has about 10 times more interesting inclusions such as insects than Baltic amber. We will look at these reasons in more detail below.

When you grab a piece of Dominican amber, you hold a piece of precious story in your hands – literally! Dominican amber comes from the tree sap of Hymenaea protera, a tree that is extinct but associated with the modern algarrobo tree. However, through DNA testing, it is believed that this prehistoric extinct tree is more closely related to another type of hymen found in Africa. In fact, all the Himalayan trees in the Caribbean are considered to be derived from hard seed pods flying from Africa to the southern equatorial course along the same route as the hurricanes. The trees from which the Dominican amber was created are thought to have dominated the shade of the ancient Caribbean tropical forest 20 to 40 million years ago. These impressive trees reached a height of about 82 feet (25 meters).

Most Dominican amber comes in the same shades of color you would find in different types of honey: straw yellow, deeper golden, orange and brown. However, Dominican amber is also available in other colors that are rarer and therefore more valuable than collectors. Red amber is sometimes formed by surface oxidation and can be quite beautiful. Green amber is even rarer and the rarest of all is blue amber. Both green and blue amber fluoresce these colors under natural sunlight and are considered by many to be the most beautiful type of amber.

One of the things that makes Baltic amber so much more opaque than Dominican amber is that it is often filled with small air bubbles. That is why baltic amber is sometimes called "bone amber" because it may look like the inside of a bone. In an effort to remove these bubbles and try to create a clearer and lighter piece of amber, Baltic amber is often treated with high pressure and temperature. This often leaves noticeable streaks all over the amber piece. Dominican amber does not need to be subjected to such stresses and is therefore more virgin and often more valuable.

Blue amber is found almost exclusively in the Dominican Republic, but you should be careful that you get the real thing when you buy it. A piece of jewelry made from blue amber, especially a piece with a pleasing inclusion, is almost always much more expensive than a piece of gold amber. If you find a blue amber piece that you think is unrealistically cheap, beware of the buyer! Keep in mind that only about 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of blue amber is opened annually, so the market should never be flooded with blue amber jewelry.

It should also be noted that all true Dominican amber fluoresces in blue light under ultraviolet light. In fact, this is one technique used to determine if Dominican amber is real or not. Copal, hardened wood juice, but not fully absorbed, is sometimes deceptively marketed as amber, but this imitation will not fluoresce under ultraviolet light.

Inclusions in Dominican amber jewelry and other Dominican amber jewelry can greatly increase the value of each piece. Insect insects found in the Dominican amber include flying ants, shameless bees, sweat bees, beetles, mushrooms, sands, small crickets, moths, spiders, pseudo scorpions, parasitic wasps, flies, plant protozoans and bony beetles. You will also find leaves, flower petals, plant roots, undivided eggs, spores and pollen. In larger pieces you will even find rare amphibians, reptiles or mushrooms! These pieces can cost a fortune and are often preserved as museum pieces.

In addition to jewelry, some collectors collect unusually nice pieces of amber. They may contain a rarer form of inclusion or unusual color. All inclusions have some scientific value, but some are so valuable to the scientific community that they are not allowed to be taken out of the country and the Dominican Museum of Natural History approves.

Dominicans are becoming more aware of how valuable their amber resources are, and therefore the value of this amber is growing rapidly. Dominican amber is a true treasure and one of the benefits of traveling to the Dominican Republic is the ability to shop for a favorite piece of it. Finding Dominican amber elsewhere becomes more difficult every day.


Intracellular pathogens are responsible for an enormous amount of worldwide morbidity and mortality and the development of vaccines and therapeutics to treat diseases caused by these pathogens continues to represent one of the biggest challenges facing the international biomedical community. By virtue of their intracellular niche, these pathogens avoid extracellular immune defense mechanisms, and consequently, vaccine strategies that target the production of antibodies have been largely ineffective. The Portnoy lab tackles a wide range of problems related to the pathogenesis and host response to intracellular pathogens with the goal of developing vaccines and therapeutics. Specifically, the lab works on Listeria monocytogenes, a facultative intracellular food-borne bacterial pathogen that is an outstanding model system with which to dissect basic aspects of host-pathogen interactions.

Specifically, the lab is focused on the interaction of the facultative intracellular bacterial pathogen Listeria monocytogenes and its mammalian host. This fascinating microorganism is able to enter cells, escape from a phagosome, circumvent autophagy, avoid cell death pathways, and grow rapidly in the cytosol. By exploiting a host system of actin-based motility, the bacteria move through the cytosol to the cell membrane and into pseudopod-like projections (listeriopods) that are ingested by neighboring cells. This mechanism allows pathogens to spread from one cell to another without ever leaving the host cytoplasm thereby avoiding the immune response. Current research covers many topics including basic microbiology, the cell biology of infection, innate immune responses, acquired immunity, and vaccine development to both infectious diseases and cancer.

Characterization of the essential virulence factor LLO.

The L. monocytogenes pore-forming cytolysin, Listeriolysin O (LLO) is an essential determinant of pathogenesis that mediates escape of the bacteria from host phagosomes allowing the bacteria to grow in the cytosol. Although LLO is related to dozens of other members of this family of cytolysins, LLO is the only one that is required by an intracellular pathogen. Accordingly, LLO has evolved numerous properties that allow it to specifically act within the host cell without causing cell death. We are currently studying the regulation of LLO synthesis and the cell biology of its trafficking in cells. We recently discovered that LLO synthesized by cytosolic bacteria forms pores in the cytoplasmic membrane but prevents killing the host cell by mediating endocytosis and targeting LLO for degradation. Mutants lacking this activity are 10,000-fold less virulent. Most recently, we have uncovered a mechanism that controls the translation of LLO so that it is synthesized and secreted during the starvation environment in a phagosome, but much less so during growth in the host cell cytosol.

Regulation of virulence gene expression.

L. monocytogenes lives a biphasic lifestyle that includes growth in the environment, including food, and infection of warm-blooded animals, including humans. Most determinants of pathogenesis are controlled by the master virulence transcriptional regulator. We recently found that intracellular bacteria detect the host environment by responding to the redox state of the host cell. We are currently using bacterial genetics to study how the bacteria sense and respond to alterations in redox. Most recently, we identified an 8-gene locus that encodes a flavin-based extracellular electron transport system that makes L. monocytogenes electrogenic. Importantly, we have also found these genes in 100s of other bacterial species including members of the intestinal microbiota. We are now studying how this system contributes to growth in the intestine and during infection.

Interaction of L. monocytogenes with the innate immune system.

We have three new projects that relate bacterial metabolism to host innate immunity.

(1) We discovered that the bacteria secrete c-di-AMP, a conserved signaling molecule that binds to and activates STING, a critical hub for the detection of microorganisms and tumors. We are currently studying the basic microbiology of c-di-AMP and its role during pathogenesis. Most recently, we have begun to explore how activation of STING can lead to trafficking from the intestine to distal sites.

(2) Humans possess a particular type of T-cell (gamma delta T- cell) that is activated by an intermediate of bacterial isoprenoid biosynthesis. Some bacteria synthesize this intermediate while others use the same pathway as humans. L. monocytogenesis one of the very few bacteria that use both pathways. We are currently seeking to understand why L. monocytogeneshas both pathways and determine the role of each during infection.

(3) Humans and mice have T-cells called MAIT cells that are stimulated by bacterial metabolic intermediates of riboflavin biosynthesis. L. monocytogenes is a riboflavin auxotroph and is not predicted to stimulate MAIT cells. We are current examining if MAIT cells respond to L. monocytogenes infection and if these T cells play a role during L. monocytogenes infection and immunity.


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Posts Tagged ‘Katherine Young’

WasteLAnd’s Biomes paints a portrait of Katherine Young

WasteLAnd marked the opening of their sixth season with a packed venue for a concert titled Biomes, featuring three pieces by Chicago-based composer Katherine Young. Katherine Young’s pieces are multimedia electroacoustic works. She incorporates not only sounds, but lights, movement, interactive performance, and anything in between. The first piece of the night, Earhart & the Queen of Spades performed by LA-based guitarist Nicholas Deyoe, uses a variety of sounds on the electric guitar. Hearing an electric guitar make unusual noises isn’t anything new, but the way Deyoe created the sounds is. Instead of a guitar pick, Deyoe used an array of hand-held objects such as small battery-powered fans, strings of pearls, keys, and bobby pins. These objects, Young explained in the program notes, reference lost objects and myths and femininity. When the fans hover above the amplified strings, the guitar creates an eerie hum; when the fan blades strike the strings, it makes a sizzling effect. The pearls, as you might guess, sound somewhere between raindrops and hail. Each sound emanation was intriguing in its own right. Young pulled out all the stops to create a twenty-minute piece of interwoven sounds, pitches, and rhythmic motifs.

The second piece of the night displayed a completely different approach to music. The Wurlitzer part (performed brilliantly by Wells Leng) used relatively typical twentieth-century techniques like whole tone scales and cluster chords. Combined with Matt Barbier whispering and crooning microtones into the euphonium, Underworld (Dancing) reminded me of an eerie yet meditative take on an old-timey calliope dance. Basically, it’s how I imagine music in the Upside-Down à la Stranger Things. And it was rad.

The final piece of the night was the world premiere of Biomes 1.0. This piece combines acoustic instruments (two trombones+ and a bassoon, played by RAGE THORMBONES Weston Olencki & Matt Barbier, and Katherine Young herself, respectively) with electronics and lights. The lights change over time, sometimes slowly and sometimes in the span of a heartbeat, and represent the smaller ecosystems present in the encompassing biome. The instrumentalists improvise within the ecosystem, building the scene with notes, whispers, whistles, and metallic clacks and clangs, further developed by the electronics reacting to the instruments’ paths. Some segments sounded like the soundscape you almost expect: the dark green light briefly feels and sounds like a sleepy rainforest with croaking frogs and rustling vines, and then transforms into something unrecognizable but no less beautiful and comprehensive. The stark white light evokes the sharp chill of the Arctic, but instead of polar bears we find gasping tubas and huffing bassoons. Throughout the piece, the light segregated the biome into ecosystems, but the steady undercurrent of electronic noise and human breath united the parts into the whole. Biomes clocked in at over half an hour long, but I was so enchanted that time nearly stopped.

Katherine Young took LA under her spell with these three incredible pieces, especially Biomes 1.0. She is WasteLAnd’s featured composer this season, so be sure to attend the rest of the concerts to hear more of her and the incredible musicians of the contemporary music scene of LA.

WasteLAnd’s Featured Composer Katherine Young Interviewed by Artistic Director Nicholas Deyoe

Katherine Young, WasteLAnd's season six featured composer. Photo by Deidre Huckabay.

Katherine Young, WasteLAnd’s season six featured composer. Photo by Deidre Huckabay.

Ahead of the show, we got WasteLAnd artistic director Nicholas Deyoe, who has a lot of experience with Katherine’s work, to interview the composer. Here are Nick and Katherine:

Nick: Some of the following questions relate to your monodrama When stranger things happen and the three pieces that it draws from: Earhart and the Queen of Spades, where the moss grows, and just water, no lemon. Would you share a little bit of the background on this project?

Katie: Sure! All of four of the pieces – the three concert pieces and the monodrama – are inspired by a short story called “The Girl Detective” by Kelly Link, which is a noir meditation on loss and a creative coming-of-age-story that follows a girl detective on various cases / adventures. The story takes a very fragmented, nonlinear form, and contains lots of lists of lost objects, references to myths of femininity (Nancy Drew, fairytale princesses, Demeter and Persephone, etc.), and a noir atmosphere. Each of the pieces in my cycle formally explore experiences of loss and modes of detection and creative reassembling.

For Earhart & the Queen of Spades, all of the guitar preparations – fans, bobby pins, keys, jewelry, etc. – are drawn from a list I compiled of lost items the girl detective comes across, plus things that the performers involved in the premieres had lost. So, for example, the fans are a reference to Amelia Earhart (mentioned in the story), and several of the performers told me about losing pieces of jewelry that had lots of personal significance.

It’s funny – I actually borrowed the title for Underworld (Dancing) from “The Girl Detective,” too. So I’d been thinking about that story for a long time!

Nick: While learning the Earhart, I developed my own emotional attachment to all of these objects and how they interact with my guitar.

On Friday night, we’re presenting a world premiere (BIOMES 1.0), something relatively new (Earhart & the Queen of Spades, 2016) and something “old” (Underworld (Dancing), 2008). You mentioned the other day that you feel a certain connection between these three pieces. Would you tell us a bit more about the connections that you feel between these pieces?

Katie: Listening to the rehearsal of Underworld (Dancing) it occurred to me that each of these pieces to different degrees and in different ways blur out of a linear “musical” forms and into sonic meditations through the use of drone, saturating textures, and/or spatialization.

Nick: You are an active improviser, and you also produce meticulously notated scores full of nuanced details. Looking at Friday’s program, BIOMES 1.0 is driven by improvisation between you, Matt, and Weston; Underworld (Dancing) is fully notated, but filled with freedom between the euphonium and the Wurlitzer, and Earhart is very clear in its instructions, but often feels like you’re inside of a structured improvisation including recurring fragments. All of the styles feel very much like “Katie Young,” despite the range of approach. What are the differences in your own mindset when you work in these different realms?

Katie: I think I’m always looking for ways to infuse a little bit more surprise into my notated scores – to give them the energy of real-time exploration that is one of the things I love about improvised music. As you point out, that can be achieved in a lot of different ways and to different degrees. Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the function or need the piece is serving for the people I am making it for / with, and then I use whatever notation is best for making that happen. There are things you can achieve with open forms that are really difficult to get from hyper specified notation, but there are things that that notation can make happen that more open forms can’t. But in all cases I start with the people and the sounds and go from there.

Details for tonight (October 5, 2018) are available at, and the series is currently running a fundraiser with stretch goals of making every concert this season free. You can support their work at

Review: wasteLAnd’s “Tout Orgeuil” at ArtShare LA

WasteLAnd continues to impress audiences with a program of new music, most of it from LA-based composers. Each performer has their respective claim to fame in LA and is closely associated with wasteLAnd, and each composer is a long-time favorite of wasteLAnd’s. New to the scene, however, is Allison Carter, a poet whose words found their way into Deyoe’s new piece. Her work made quite the stir among the audience members, and I have a feeling we will begin to hear her name more in the future.

Before I review the concert itself, I find something worth mentioning: the gender representation. It was an even split. In my day job, I currently have my students writing a paper on 19th century gender roles and women composers in the Romantic era, so this has been on my mind a lot. One hundred years ago, women could not vote in the United States, and it was nearly impossible to earn respect as a composer or performer. Nowadays, female representation in the music scene is gaining. It is not yet even, but progress is happening. WasteLAnd’s October concert featured six composers; three were women and two were men (Erik Ulman had two pieces, so the ratio of compositions is 3:3). There were seven performers (including Allison Carter reading aloud), and four were women. The best part was that I didn’t notice until afterwards. I have come to recognize that gender equality is already quite common in the LA new music scene. So much so that this is the first time I put it together. I looked back over some old programs I’ve reviewed, and every concert has women as composers, performers, directors or all three.

Ok. Feminist aside complete. Moving on, because there is so much good about this concert to discuss.

The night opened with Kaija Saariaho’s Folia, performed by Scott Worthington on double bass and electronics. Like many compositions from the end of the 20th century, this piece focuses on dynamics and timbre over pitch and harmony. Sometimes the bass whistles like an icy wind, other times it rumbles like an earthquake, putting palpable pressure on your ears. Scott saws out some kind of textural melody, phrases build and climax and fade – textural intensity carries the musical line. The electronic aspect augments and echoes the timbres. It overlays overtones, resulting in both a more ‘open’-sounding composition and greater complexity overall.

Next on the docket was the duet Tout Orgeuil… by Erik Ulman. Stephanie Aston and Elise Roy are always an amazing team, and their performance on this piece was no exception. It begins with a piccolo solo, and Roy gradually descended down the flute family to alto flute. Aston sang sleepily about pride smoking in the night. Given that the text is from a Stephan Mallarmé poem, my mind turned to Debussy. Ulman is no Impressionist, but I feel Debussy would have approved of the modern counterpoint and expressive extended techniques. The pitches bent down, down, down into sleep, and the flutes became larger and the words grew heavier. Erik captured the good sinking feeling, the kind you feel in a cozy armchair while drifting to sleep.

Third up was Matt Barbier on trombone and electronics performing puddles and crumbs by Katherine Young. For me, this piece created a very specific soundscape: I, the listener, am a koi in the pond on a rainy day and the daily miracle of food raining from heaven is happening. Three of the major elements that contribute to this soundscape are 1. Sharply sucking air through the trombone, 2. Sharp plosives into the mouthpiece that are amplified by the electronics, 3. Dynamic tempi. Matt’s deep breathing combined with the electronic influence reminded me of snorkeling, the plosive pops like rain on water’s surface when I swim underwater. These are instinctive memories, of course, and it may be a coincidence that they play so well together. Now you understand my watery theme. The push and pull of the tempo took me a while to incorporate into my soundscape idea. At first I thought it felt like seasickness, but I eventually concluded it was more like watching fish dart in a pond. They sprint only a few inches or feet, depending on the size of the fish, and then hesitate. The tempo seemed to do exactly that. And then it all became clear, that the soundscape was from the point of view of a koi in a pond in the rain during feeding time. I’m sure many will disagree, whether they had another idea or didn’t find it so blatantly programmatic at all; one of the wonders of music is how everyone experiences things differently. For what it’s worth, I did come up with a secondary interpretation that involves heavy breathing, plosive pops, and sprinting-and-stopping: Darth Vader playing basketball. So really it’s all relative. Regardless of the loftiness or pop art-iness of my personal experience, Barbier proved yet again that the trombone is more than just a brass instrument in a marching band. He played every color in the palette, and demonstrated rigorous control over his body and his instrument to perform such a demanding piece.

Fittingly the 100th piece wasteLAnd has programmed, Erik Ulman’s this until is a flute solo, and Elise Roy absolutely nailed it. I’ve said before that she has superhuman control of her instrument, and she proved it again with this piece. She made her flute sing, speak, howl, wail and whisper. Though a solo composition, I could sometimes here a ghost of counterpoint when she effected heavy harmonics. I honestly couldn’t say if that was Ulman’s intention or Roy’s execution, but every so often a particularly turgid note would quietly sound the octave or fourth below, creating a beautiful, haunting harmony. this until was the only solo acoustic musical composition of the night and it was right in the middle of the program; Elise managed to keep up the energy on her own, and carried us into the final pieces of the evening.

The program ends with a sort of binary piece. First, Allison Carter read her Poems from A Fixed, Formal ArrangementNicholas Deyoe used the text for his piece Finally, the cylindrical voids tapping along, a line from the poem. I can’t say I have ever attended another concert that had the poet read their work first before the musical product, and I wish this would become the norm everywhere. As a general rule, increased understanding leads to increased appreciation, so knowing the text ahead of time (and from the author herself, no less) helped Deyoe’s work succeed. The instrumentation sounded like speech slowed down by a factor of ten. The melodies felt like they wanted to resolve up to a tonic, but they kept bending downwards, defying expectations. One thing I love about Deyoe’s style is that it’s always interesting and it never fulfills your expectations. Once you think you have it figured out, he changes it again. This piece feels like your mind wandering and getting lost – when it’s 4am and you have to wake up in two hours but you’re caught up in the twilight zone that is four in the morning. Knowing composers, that is probably the mindset he was in while writing. Also, knowing composers, that is a hard composition to pull off. I commend Nicholas Deyoe for a well-constructed and evocative ensemble composition.

WasteLAnd concerts are on the first Friday of every month at ArtShare. Check out Weights and Measures on November 4.

Editor’s note: WasteLAnd is currently running their annual fundraiser. Take a minute to support them at


Edison Jensen

Edison Jensen

Of Counsel
t: 831-454-0405

Edison A. Jensen is an experienced attorney with over 30 years of practical and legal expertise in the formation, operation and governance of Non-Profit Corporations. He has a rare combination of both legal and business expertise as well as leadership skills that allow him to truly understand non-profit organizations from an insider’s perspective.  He has served on numerous non-profit boards and as a board president for every non-profit board he has served on.  His passion for the work that non-profits do, coupled with his understanding of their particular challenges, makes him uniquely qualified to serve his clients.  Additionally, Edison works closely with a variety of non-profit executives and board members on complex problems, strategic issues, compliance, risk and crisis management.  Edison has a particular expertise in the healthcare industry as it relates to governance in non-profit corporations.

Edison has served as board president for Hospitals, Rural Medical Clinics or Federally Qualified Health Centers, Drug & Alcohol Treatment Centers, and Health Trusts (Hospital Conversion Foundation).  He was also elected as Board Chair of the Santa Cruz Trial Lawyers Association and Legal Aid of Santa Cruz County.  Edison travelled across the country in leadership positions on the Committee on Governance for both the California Hospital Association and the American Hospital Association.  Edison has received numerous awards and recognition for his commitment to social justice as it relates to access to healthcare for the indigent.

Edison received an undergraduate degree in Politics from U.C. Santa Cruz and his Law Degree from Santa Clara University.


Our remuneration

Stable Group Ltd is open and transparent about the remuneration we receive in respect of our insurance distribution activities. We are paid on a commission basis, the commission being a proportion of the total premium paid by you which is allowed to us by the Underwriters as we act on their behalf.  If the type of policy we distribute reaches specific profit targets, the Underwriters may also pay Stable an additional amount.


“I have a bullet in my foot from trying to vote!”

By Michele Garnett McKenzie

I’m sitting in my office, catching up with a former client. A member of the political opposition who fled Cameroon and sought asylum nearly a decade ago, she had stopped by to show me her new U.S. passport. Our talk turned to the November elections—she was so proud to finally be an American citizen and to be voting for the first time in the United States.

But when I mentioned that Minnesotans will be deciding whether to amend the constitution to require government-issued photo identification to vote, she became angry. I didn’t have to frame the issue for her. I didn’t have to give her any background about the Voting Rights Act or explain that this is a voter restriction proposal that threatens to disenfranchise thousands of Minnesotans. Before I could even tell her that The Advocates opposes the measure her eyes flashed and her voice became stern.

“You have no idea how precious the right to vote is,” she told me. “I have a bullet in my foot from trying to vote!”

Our clients have a first-hand understanding of what freedom and oppression mean

Her reaction started me thinking about how the passage of the amendments could affect the many people we’ve helped to find asylum from persecution over the past thirty years. Every one of our clients has a unique story of their flight from their homelands where they feared persecution, torture, or death on account of their identities and beliefs. I thought of Joe, one of my first clients at The Advocates. Born in Zimbabwe, where President Mugabe had long proclaimed homosexuals to be “worse than dogs or pigs,” Joe struggled for years to hide his identity out of fear of arrest, torture, and execution at the hands of the government. Arriving in the United States, he sought asylum on the basis of his sexual orientation. What might passage of the marriage restriction amendment say to him?

Immigrants have helped shape Minnesota’s proud tradition of protecting religious freedom

Some proponents of the marriage amendment assert that their religious freedom is at stake, but they ignore Minnesota’s proud tradition of protecting religious freedom—a tradition rooted in the experiences of early settlers, but very much alive to this day.

In 1988, Eli Hershberger and 13 other members of an Amish religious community were ticketed for operating black, horse-drawn buggies on a public highway in Fillmore County, Minnesota, without displaying an orange-red reflective triangle, as Minnesota law requires for slow-moving vehicles. Hershberger and the others were unwilling to compromise their belief that displaying the bright sign on their buggies would mean placing their faith in worldly symbols rather than in God.

The Minnesota Supreme Court upheld Hershberger’s challenge to the law, noting that “the early settlers of this region were of varied sects, may have endured religious intolerance in their native countries and were thus sensitive to religious differences among them.” Those experiences, the court observed, shaped the text of the liberty of conscience clause in the Minnesota Constitution:

The right of every man to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience shall never be infringed; nor shall any man be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship, or to maintain any religious or ecclesiastical ministry, against his consent; nor shall any control of or interference with the rights of conscience be permitted, or any preference be given by law to any religious establishment or mode of worship . . . .

(Minnesota Constitution, Article I, § 16.) “This language is of a distinctively stronger character than the federal counterpart [in the First Amendment],” the court wrote, precluding “even an infringement on or an interferencewith religious freedom.” The court therefore allowed Hershberger and the others to use their proposed alternative: simple reflective tape and a lighted red lantern. The Kentucky Supreme Court, in contrast, just struck down a similar challenge brought by another group of Amish plaintiffs, ruling that the Kentucky Constitution’s protections for freedom of conscience go no further than the United States Constitution’s.

These rigorous protections should reassure people who object on religious grounds to same-sex marriage; no constitutional amendment is necessary to protect their religious freedom in Minnesota.

The proposed voter restriction amendment threatens religious freedom

Religious liberty might not be the first thing that comes to mind in discussions of voting procedures. But in the United States, the fundamental right to vote has been shaped by our respect for religious freedom. Most countries hold elections on weekends, while Election Day in the United States falls on a Tuesday, to accommodate Sabbath observances.

Religious freedom is at stake, because Minnesota’s proposed voting amendment would require all voters voting in person to present valid, government-issued photographic identification before receiving a ballot. The word “photographic” is key. According to a recent report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, some Christians believe photographs violate the Ten Commandments. “Identification laws that require individuals to be photographed … may infringe upon these individuals’ First Amendment right to exercise their religious beliefs freely.” Mississippi—the only state to place a voter ID requirement in its constitution—has an exemption for religious objectors, as do similar laws in Indiana and Pennsylvania. Minnesota’s amendment, however, has no such exception.

As further evidence of Minnesota’s long history of broadly accommodating the free exercise of religion, Minn. Stat. 171.071 allows a religious objector to obtain a non-photographic state-issued identification card. According to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, more than 100 people have these non-photographic Minnesota IDs.

But the proposed voting procedures amendment would erode Minnesota’s tradition of promoting religious freedom. The proposed amendment to the Minnesota Constitution would not allow any exemptions for religious objectors. It would require “[a]ll voters voting in person [to] present valid government-issued photographic identification before receiving a ballot.” “All voters” means no exceptions. So the more specific voting procedures amendment would trump the rigorous freedom of conscience clause in the Minnesota Constitution.

People who object on religious grounds to being photographed have a fundamental right to participate in our political process. The proposed amendment was poorly thought-out and fails to take into account our state’s long tradition of honoring freedom of conscience.

The Advocates for Human Rights opposes both amendments, and we are working hard to defeat them. My friend from Cameroon’s story inspires me as we work together to try and defeat the two Minnesota constitutional amendments that would restrict the right to vote and freedom to marry. Have you talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about how the proposed voter restriction amendment would affect voting rights, or how the proposed marriage restriction amendment would limit the freedom to marry? Could you make time this weekend to make calls or doorknock to help defeat the amendments? Visit Our Vote, Our Future and Minnesotans United for All Families for more information on how you can help.

Michele Garnett McKenzie is Advocacy Director at The Advocates for Human Rights. Thanks to staff attorney Amy Bergquist for the constitutional research.


A Dance That Empties

A Dance That Empties
A Dance That Empties

A Dance That Empties by Subtle Degrees.

Bandcamp Link: A Dance That Empties

I’ve been listening to this album all week.

Not because it is super long, but because it is super dense.

It is a Tenor Sax and Drum duo album from Travis Laplante, (of Battle Trance and Little Women,) and Gerald Cleaver, (of Farmers by Nature and Black Host).

Travis Laplante is well known, along with his other compatriots in Battle Trance, for extending the tonal vocabulary of the Saxophone. “Extended Technique” and all that. He is also an extremely melodic player.

But, when I first heard about this album I was wondering, where would Gerald Cleaver fit in?

Most saxophonists who traffic in arpeggio based extended technique and saxophone multiphonics do it solo. With all that going on, there’s just not a lot of room for other players to fit in.

So, I sort of put off listening to it for a while.

Foolishly, it turns out.

Mr Cleaver is a great foil for Mr Laplante, translating his complex saxophone polyrhythms into an ever changing sea of even more complex drum motifs. Somehow finding the accent points in Mr Laplante’s playing and using them to create rhythmic units.

The album is made up of 3 pieces. All three include passages of solos and duos.

Mr Laplante’s playing utilizes some of the same techniques as an Evan Parker or a John Butcher, but it feels more controlled and spacious than those men’s often extremely dense work. Which I guess leaves more room for others.

Though, some of the tempos these two build to are just nuts. The third piece, especially, Mr Laplante has a particularly long section where an arpeggio speeds up and speeds up until it is going so fast it is a single modulated tone. Nuts.

The funny thing, as I was thinking about this today, is the rhythms of A Dance That Empties often feels not so much like “Jazz”, as an extension of the type of playing that might accompany a Shakespeare play, Renaissance music, or an English traditional dance. Well, OK, a totally nuts Morris Dance Ritual, perhaps performed by extremely nimble goats.

#ADanceThatEmpties #TravisLaplante #GeraldCleaver #TodaysCommuteSoundtrack

A Dance That Empties


When To Visit
Call to speak to one of our experts 0330 094 0370
Australia Holidays - Picturesque panoramic landscape scenery
When To Visit

Australia has a hot and sunny climate, with most of the country receiving more than 3,000 hours of sunshine a year. In summer (December to March) the average temperature is 84°F (29°C). The hottest region is the northern two-thirds of the country, which experiences humid and wet conditions in summer. Further south summer is warm with occasional hot spells and mild nights. Winter (June to August) averages 56°F (13°C) for the country as a whole, with warm days and mild nights in the northern areas, becoming cool and showery in the south (although there are still plenty of sunny days).

Australia is a vast landmass and the climate does vary from region to region so travellers are advised to research the weather in the region they are visiting, but generally the country has very pleasant weather year-round.

Hot and humid conditions and storms bringing tropical rain bursts typify the start of the year in northern Australia. During these months northern Australia experiences its wet season, and can be difficult to get to.

In the south, the days are warm and sunny, and while there can be heavy rain showers, these pass quickly. This is the most popular period for Australians to take time off work, with Australia Day celebrated in January, frequent sports events and numerous festivals.

In the north, the temperatures are pleasant and the crowds of summer have started to disperse. Roads open up across the region, improving access to more remote locations.

With plenty of sunshine and much less rain than the summer months, April is one of our most recommended times to visit the south.

Northern Australia’s 'dry season' (during the Australian winter) is a time of lovely sunny days and warm temperatures, well suited for exploring on land or underwater. The tidal currents around the Great Barrier Reef are gentler, creating good snorkeling conditions.

In the country’s southern regions the weather is more temperate, making for good hiking conditions, although it can be rainy in certain parts.

In the north, the temperature and humidity start to build, causing the odd thunderstorm. This can bring welcome rain, transforming Outback landscapes with wildflowers. Along the coast, high winds can affect access to the reef islands.

In the south, this is the start of spring. Terrific walking and wildlife-spotting opportunities open up in the national parks and coastal regions. As Christmas approaches, Christmas lights and trees appear in towns and cities under blue skies. The year culminates in New Year's Eve celebrations with dazzling firework displays.


Le Jardin de Villandry

Loire Valley
Attractions and places of interest
Great Outdoors

Villandry owes its fame to its 6 beautiful gardens - the  water garden with its mirror-like lake, the decorative ornamental garden, the maze, the sun garden, the herb garden and at the lowest level the splendid kitchen garden which is completely replanted twice a year.

Nearby attractions

Built on an island in the river Indre, the Château d'Azay-le-Rideau is one of the most famous chateaux in the Loire Valley.

The Jardin botanique de Tours (5 hectares) is a municipal botanical garden and arboretum, it began as a collection of about 2,000 medical and exotic plants arranged in greenhouses.

The Tours mueseum of fine arts was originaly established 4 March 1795 but has been situated in the bishop's former palace since 1910. The museum has over 12,000 works but only 1,000 are on show to the public. The ground floor...

This 15thC fairytale château belonging to the famous Beauvau family has been lovingly restored. The 12 beautiful gardens offer many delights including the Potager de Gargantua with huge vegetables, the Lavender Knots garden,...

Places to visit nearby

Tours in the Loire Valley is a modern city with a history dating back to the Romans that is famous for its architecture, wines and markets.

Saumur in Atlantic Loire Valley is easily recognised by its fairytale chateau and is famous for its association with horses - the area around the town is even known as the Kingdom of the Horse.

Blois in the Loire Valley is a charming royal city with an historic château that has been home to 7 French kings and 10 French queens.


Workshop "Intercultural Communication"

Workshop "Introduction to Intercultural Communication" by Alexia Petersen, M.A. in the MAINZ Seminar room (03-122) at Staudinger Weg 9, Mainz

Aim and content of the workshop:

● Provide a knowledge base of cultural differences and their impact on typical cross-cultural

communication behaviour (framework for transparency)

● Provide tools for identifying and solving intercultural communication problems (workable

● Guide participants in transferring a conceptual understanding of cultural differences into

effective intercultural communication skills (applications training)

The increasingly international and multicultural demographics in the academic and scientific workplace mean that students are faced with having to be more interculturally skilled and proactive when interacting in teams with other students, or with supervisors and professors, who can approach work and supervision in unexpectedly very different ways.

Using authentic complex case studies and scenarios, Part 1 of the seminar will establish the conceptual foundations that underlie the main communication styles that play out in crosscultural work cultures. Through different frameworks of cultural rationale and expectations students learn to identify likely culture-based conflict interfaces, as well as to appreciate the risks and potentials inherent in different work cultures. This is the key step in structuring knowledge for use in applications, enabling a critical “paradigm shift” in devising new strategies in key work scenarios such as conducting meetings, managing conflict, requesting and providing information, optimising multicultural teams, and providing motivational leadership. In particular, the workshop approaches these scenarios from the perspectives of the doctoral student working with other students and team members, and with his or her team leader or supervisor, to ultimately draw together the necessary tools required for effective cross-cultural work in international teams, conflict management, and leadership skills. Whether students are presently in leadership positions or simply often called upon to exercise leadership abilities, sensitivity and skill in handling the cultural context of teamwork is a key component to harnessing and synergising the multicultural work potential.

Having established these foundations and defining the conceptual “Red Thread”, Part 2 focusses on their application in various work scenarios. Case study work enables students to practise “paradigm shifting” in their assessment of conflicts and misunderstandings in the communication and problem-solving process from different perspectives across cultural and status divides. Another major application here explores the manifestation of cross-cultural conflicts on the language level, and how using language to create psychological space and “facework” is a key leadership skill in managing conflict, motivating teamwork, and solving concrete problems. We therefore isolate the hidden conflicts in the so-called “international English”; how, for example, the characteristic features of “German-English” typically lead to misunderstanding or conflict with“English-English” or “Japanese-English”, etc., regardless of technical language ability and a common scientific vocabulary. This important component, therefore, both extends and completes the conceptual framework developed through the seminar.


City of Lies

I’m not a statistician, but I’m guessing there are at least a few of you who were excited to see City of Lies, a film that stars Johnny Depp and Forest Whitaker as they try to crack the case of who murdered iconic rapper Notorious B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls) in a 1997 drive-by shooting. But you’ll have to temper that excitement, because even though the movie was slated to come out exactly one month from today, it has now been yanked from release altogether.

Here’s the film’s trailer, just to show you what you’re going to be missing out on:

Deadline reports that distribution company Global Road has not set a new release date, leaving the film’s future hanging in the balance. Also complicating matters is a lawsuit against Depp from this film’s location manager Gregg “Rocky” Brooks, who says “he was repeatedly hit by Depp after being informed that filming that night in downtown L.A. was going to have to wrap late.” I wonder if Depp attacking a random co-worker will change any of his die-hard fans’ minds about the allegations that he assaulted his ex-wife Amber Heard? (Spoiler: it won’t.)

Brooks is charging Depp with assault and battery and “seeks damages for hostile work environment, retaliation, and wrongful termination among the claims.”

In cases like these, I can’t help but feel bad for all of the people who worked on this movie and are inadvertently punished for the bad behavior of its star. I’ve been on tons of film sets and the crews are always the hardest workers in the room – they get there early, stay later than everyone else, and are generally excited to show people what they’ve been working on. To have all that work go to waste is a huge shame, so part of me hopes this movie at least goes direct-to-video so they can show their friends and families the fruits of their labor.

Brad Furman (The Lincoln Lawyer, The Infiltrator) directed the movie, which had a script by actor-turned-screenwriter Christian Contreras. Here’s the film’s official synopsis:

Based on the true story of one of the most notorious and unsolved cases in recent memory, CITY OF LIES is a provocative thriller revealing a never-before-seen look at the infamous murder of The Notorious B.I.G. shortly following the death of Tupac Shakur. L.A.P.D. detective Russell Poole (Johnny Depp) has spent years trying to solve his biggest case, but after two decades, the investigation remains open. “Jack” Jackson (Forest Whitaker), a reporter desperate to save his reputation and career, is determined to find out why. In search of the truth, the two team up and unravel a growing web of institutional corruption and lies. Relentless in their hunt, these two determined men threaten to uncover the conspiracy and crack the foundation of the L.A.P.D. and an entire city.

Cool Posts From Around the Web:


How the world’s biggest CCTV company’s cameras can easily be hacked

If you use the devices Xiongmai and Xiongmai OEM together you should be prepared: SEC Consult discovered a significant vulnerability in surveillance CCTV maker giant Xiongmai’s cameras.

As the connections between the devices and the user’s mobile phone are unencrypted when managed with an app, third-parties can access the cameras without even being requested for a password. This allows hackers to spy on the owner, carry out botnet instructions and larger network intrusions.

Read more about this here.